


Boy, We're Free

by Tierfal



Series: Whippersnapper [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa, Cats, Crack, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfons goes to pick up his drunk boyfriend. Except that he doesn't have a boyfriend, obviously; what are you talking about?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boy, We're Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phindus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Phindus).



> This may or may not be based in part on my experience walking into [924 Gilman Street](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/924_Gilman_Street) wearing a Disney World hoodie. Also, Eddie Money aside, the title is [Woodkid](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNIT5hM8c0), because all of the fic is Woodkid right now. XD''
> 
> Aaaaaaaand it's for [Phindus](http://phindus.tumblr.com), a.k.a. the bane of my existence, who made this inevitable with [gorgeous hipster couple art](http://tierfal.tumblr.com/post/64089000342/phindus-these-fucking-dorks-seriously-had-an), (and [gorgeous band art!](http://tierfal.tumblr.com/post/64929124344/phindus-holy-shit-it-got-even-sexier-lookat)) – and who also came up with pretty much all of the plot points herein the moment that I mentioned designated-driver!Alfons. This dude is the _actual best_. ♥

The ticket guy at the front desk is eating a sandwich and flipping through a magazine of amps and speakers.

“Hi,” Alfons says, cringing inwardly at the way he has to raise his voice almost to a shout to make himself heard over the ruckus pouring out of the back room.  “I’m looking f—”

“I know who you’re looking for,” the guy says, winking at him and jerking a thumb back at the dark hall that does nothing to dull the noise.  “Last I heard, he’s at the bar.”

“That’s the last I heard, too,” Alfons says.  “That’s why I’m here.”

The guy grins.  “Well, aren’t you cuter than a bucket full of kittens?  Designated driver duty, huh?  Been there; ain’t jealous.  Head on in.”

“Do I need a stamp?” Alfons asks.  He wouldn’t tell under torture, but the UV ink hand stamps that you get when you buy a ticket are his favorite part of coming to Whippersnapper.

Other than Miles, of course, but Miles is his favorite part of _everything_ , and UV hand stamps that are usually in the shape of Cthulhu and cartoony dinosaurs should get a chance to shine (literally).

“Nah,” the ticket guy says.  “You’re good.”

Alfons swallows the instinct to argue, but he still hesitates as he starts down the hall towards the medium-sized riot taking place on and around the stage.

“Go on,” the ticket guy says, making a shooing motion, so on he goes.

Sure enough, the über-pierced, ten-foot-tall bouncer (whose nametags says “Aloysius”) just smiles and waves him through.

In his thin little striped cardigan, he feels at once slightly naked and like he’s wearing a neon sign that says _Not Hardcore_ , but he steels his nerves and edges into the fray.

He gets a glimpse of snowy hair and then a glimpse of ice-blonde, and then he blinks, and then Miles is flinging both arms around him and very nearly bowling him over onto the questionable floor.

“Babe,” Miles says, nuzzling insistently at Alfons’s cheek. “Babe.  Babe.”

“Yes?” Alfons asks helplessly, feeling his face heat and trying to stabilize the massive warm weight draped against his body.

“I missed you,” Miles says.

Alfons’s heart doesn’t just melt; it _dissolves_.  He now has a chest cavity full of goop.  That’s going to be an issue.

“I missed you, too,” he says.  “How did it go?”

“It was good,” Miles says.  “Good gig.  Gig good.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Alfons says, patting at Miles’s hair a little as it brushes against his face. “Um—if it was good, why are you drunk?”

Miles stands up very straight and looks at him like he just suggested they spend their next date kicking puppies and vandalizing picture books. “’M not _drunk_.”

This is exactly how Miles acted after the solitary ill-fated round of the _drink once for each thing that wouldn’t fly on basic cable_ version of the ‘Game of Thrones’ drinking game. He then promptly fell asleep—so deeply that no mortal power could rouse him, and with one extremely heavy arm across Alfons’s waist. Which was a problem, because Alfons had also been playing the drinking game, and accordingly _really_ needed to pee.

“Of course you’re not,” Alfons says soothingly. He holds both hands out. “Let’s just get you home, okay? You can tell me all about it.”

“You brought your car?” Miles asks, hands swinging up to clutch Alfons’s shoulders again.

“Yeah,” Alfons says, wrapping his own hands around Miles’s wrists and trying to tug. “It’s just around the c—”

“Hey-ey!” Miles releases Alfons all at once, the better to wave his arms trying to flag down Buck and Olivier. “My ride is here! And I am gonna _ride_ ’im—” The color of Miles’s eyes is perhaps best described as carnelian most of the time. Right now, though, they’re just _carnal_. “—all… night… long.”

even MORE fantastic art by Phindus, originally posted [here](http://phindus.tumblr.com/post/63996234275/no-night-is-complete-without-doodling-modern-au)

Alfons’s whole face must be scarlet. He is both supremely mortified and intensely turned on. It’s an uncomfortable combination. He’s almost starting to think he likes it. 

It was only a matter of time before he went crazy, wasn’t it?

“Oh, you kids,” Olivier says with a half-smirk. “Drive safe. Don’t wear Miles out _too_ much; I’ll need him in one piece later.”

“Sure,” Alfons says, fumbling to grip a fistful of Miles’s T-shirt to try to balance him.  The urge to say _Yes, ma’am_ to Olivier is overpowering.  “I’ll—take good care of him.”

“I know you will,” Olivier says.

The weird thing is, it doesn’t _sound_ like a threat at all, but somehow it _feels_ like one.

Alfons hooks his arm through Miles’s and beats a hasty retreat.

The ticket guy sighs audibly as they stagger together out through the front door.  “ _Ah, l’amour, comme c’est joli_.”

“ _Fous le camp_ ,” Miles calls back cheerfully.

“ _Ta mère_!” the ticket guy shouts.

Alfons is ready for tonight to be over.

 

 

Olivier watches the extremely familiar tuft of white hair and the increasingly familiar hedgehog-puff of blond hair disappear into the crowd of black straps and spikes.

Buck is worrying at his lip ring pensively.  “You think they’re serious?” he asks.

“I think they’re deranged,” Olivier says.

“Yeah,” Buck says, “but serious-deranged, or casual-deranged?”

Olivier looks at him for a long moment and slowly raises an eyebrow.  Despite the fact that her hair has, for several years running, made it impossible to see all of her facial features at once, Buck gets the point.

“It’s just that if they’re committed,” he says quickly, “I figure I should learn the kid’s name.  ’Cause right now, I just call him ‘Four-Eyes Hispterbutt’.”

Olivier has no choice but to implement the second eyebrow.  “I’ve never heard you call him that.”

“I mean in my _head_ ,” Buck says.  “To his face, I just say ‘Hey, you’.  It’s shorter.”

Olivier glances towards the door again.  “His name is Alfons Heiderich.  He’s eighteen and a half.  He shares an apartment on the west side of town with his two cousins, who are emancipated minors.  He’s enrolled at the community college, and he writes articles for an online astronomy and astrophysics journal and works as a cashier in an Indian takeout restaurant.”

Buck pauses.  “It sounds like you approve.”

“I didn’t say that,” Olivier says.

“What kind of a name is Alfons Heiderich?” Buck asks.

“What kind of a name is Four-Eyes Hipsterbutt?” Olivier asks.

Buck’s eyes water with the effort of trying not to giggle.

“It doesn’t matter whether I approve or not,” Olivier says.  “The point that you’re missing here is that if anything goes wrong, I already know where he lives.”

Buck’s battle against hilarity abruptly turns into the starry-eyed expression of a man who will follow her to hell and back—and then to hell again, if need be—for as long as he lives.

Good.

 

 

“Come home with me,” Miles breathes into Alfons’s ear, which tickles like _mad_.

“I can’t,” Alfons says, dragging the pair of them down the sidewalk in the general direction of his car.  “I have classes tomorrow.  I’ll come in and make sure you drink some water, okay?”

“ _Noooooo_ ,” Miles croons, leaning harder on his shoulder.  “Let me come home with you, then.”

Alfons’s knees are wobbly from Miles’s weight—not from the way his capable mouth keeps brushing over Alfons’s ear, or anything.  “But Ed and Al are there.”

Al already knows about Miles (in the uncanny way in which Al already knows pretty much everything) and doesn’t particularly seem to care, but Ed’s still in the dark, and Alfons would like to keep it that way as long as possible.  The last thing Miles needs is to get the third degree from someone who thinks that menacing Alfons’s significant other with a kitchen knife is the best way to convince them to answer the question _“Is my cousin still a virgin?”_ honestly. It’s no wonder he’s never held down a boyfriend before, with Ed still striving to protect his honor several years too late.

Miles’s arms loop around Alfons’s waist, and he starts to sway, which sends them both stumbling back and forth across the sidewalk, veering dangerously close to the curb.

“ _I can feel you breathe_ ,” Miles sings softly, mostly on-key, his hip swinging into Alfons’s in a way that is both faintly painful and extremely hot.  “ _I can feel your heart beat faster_ …”

The distraction tactics worked—Alfons only just realized where this is going.  He’s _doomed_.

“Wait,” he says.  “Wait, stop—”

“ _Take me home tonight_ ,” Miles sings, catching Alfons’s hand and twirling him so fast and so deftly that his heart jumps into his throat.  “ _I don’t wanna let you go ’til you see the light—take me home tonight_ —”

Alfons Heiderich has a terrible secret: he is abjectly powerless to resist cheesy eighties songs.  He simply doesn’t have it in him.  He has lost this round; the most he can do is try to scrape together some damage control.

“All _right_ ,” he says, clinging to Miles’s warm hands.  “Let me just text Al.”

Miles looks ever-so-slightly smug as he presses up against Alfons again and continues humming quietly.

They’re almost to the car.  Alfons fishes his phone out of his pocket and starts tapping.

_I need you to get Ed out of the apt for 5 mins!!!_

He doesn’t even bother putting it back into his pocket; Al texts at the approximate speed of eager lightning.  The phone buzzes in his hand.

_I refuse to be an accomplice in your debauched romantic liaisons.  P.S. I mean that in a loving way._

Alfons takes a deep breath and tries not to notice the way Miles’s hip is grinding against his with every awkward step. He’d kill for a third hand to hold a cigarette—and a fourth to light it. Maybe he should get a cigarette butler.

Maybe he should get a _life_.

 _Al,_ he types out very seriously, _if I have to tell Ed about your stalkee, I will.  No details spared.  Choice is yours._

It’s barely even registered as sent before he’s getting a reply:

_When do your five minutes need to start?_

Alfons can’t decide whether he feels horrible or relieved.  He’s a complicated man; it’s sort of a mix of the two.  Horrelived.  Relorrible.

_I’ll text when we’re outside the building.  You’re the best!_

They’re at the car.  This is the homestretch.  Alfons may survive this ordeal yet.

 _I’m the best to blackmail, you mean,_ Al texts back, but Alfons is currently soaring on a combination of adrenaline and serotonin and oxytocin and God only knows what else, and he’s too busy bundling Miles into the passenger seat to respond.

Buckling Miles’s seatbelt is—interesting.  Miles takes the opportunity to purr into Alfons’s ear, and Alfons’s glasses almost fall off, and he has to concentrate very hard not to slam the car door on his own boyfriend’s ankle, not least because Olivier would _murder_ him if he broke Miles’s leg a month into ‘gig season’.

This is probably not the safest spot of driving he’s ever done, but fortunately it’s not too far from Whippersnapper to the apartment—and it’s just late enough that most of the sane people have cleared off the streets, but the drunks haven’t started spilling out of the bars yet.  Alfons clenches and unclenches his hands on the steering wheel at every stop sign all the same. He really, really needs nicotine right now; really needs…

Miles lays a hand over his white knuckles at the next red light.

“Thank you,” he says. “You didn’t have to.”

“Pick you up?” Alfons says. The light may just stay red _forever_ , at the rate it’s going. This one must have tiny, angry light-changing gnomes in it after all. “Well—I mean—no. But I wanted to. I want you to be safe.”

Miles squeezes his hand and then shifts away, the better to lean against the window. Orange from the nearest streetlamp paints his hair. “Didn’t mean to drink so much.”

“You shouldn’t,” Alfons says gently. “I mean—I’ll always come get you, but you could hurt yourself, y’know?”

Miles is quiet for long enough that Alfons thinks maybe he’s gone to sleep.

Then he clears his throat. “You remember that… guy… I talked about?”

The light turns green at last as Alfons scans the recent shelves of carefully-alphabetized memories of how this man makes him feel. “Which guy?”

“The one…” Alfons glances over; Miles’s fingers are toying with the door handle. “The one a couple years ago, who promised the moon and the sea and the stars, and I _believed_ him, but then he only wanted to get close to Olivier, and I was… nothing.”

Alfons’s heart is climbing his esophagus again. “I—remember. Yeah.”

“He was there tonight,” Miles says. “And I… needed… to let go. Of him. Of that. Of all the old things that hold me back from you. I don’t want to hold anything back. That’s the difference, with you. I just want to… be. And I can. I know I can. I know I’m safe with you.”

Alfons has been called a goody-two-shoes and a straight arrow and a toer of the line all his life. But right now—

He swings the wheel and swerves over to the side of the road without so much as glancing in his blind spot, and then he jams the gearshift into _Park_ , leans across the console, fists a hand in Miles’s collar, and kisses him hard. There aren’t words for this. He really hopes Miles will understand.

By the fingers curling into his hair, he dares to believe that the point came across.

“All right,” he gasps out when he’s finally managed to tear himself away in order to breathe properly. “Hang on. We’re almost there.”

“Fuck,” Miles murmurs against his lips, eyes hazy and _scorchingly_ warm, fingers curling tighter into his hair.  “Babe, I want you so fucking bad—” His eyelashes graze Alfons’s cheek, and his breath stutters against Alfons’s throat, and his free hand drags down the front of Alfons’s sweater.  “Right here, please, _God_ —”

“We shouldn’t,” Alfons says, trying to ignore the way his voice quavers.  “We _really_ shouldn’t, ’cause you’re wasted—and we could get arrested for indecent exposure—and Al’s waiting—and my car’s not _clean_ —and—”

Miles laughs softly, richly, lowly.  “See, that’s the thing that’s so weird.”  He leans in and nips gently at Alfons’s neck, which tickles and pinches and is—fantastic, really.  “Your neuroses are so _cute_.”

“They’re not, though,” Alfons says.  “They’re stupid.”

Miles’s wet mouth moves soothingly over his skin.  “Nothing about you is stupid.”

Sex in the car is starting to sound appealing—but Alfons’s sundry qualms are ever-so-slightly too insistent to assuage.

“Hey,” he says, brushing a wisp of white back from Miles’s forehead. “Let’s go home. You can get rehydrated and gargle half a bottle of mouthwash, and then we can sleep it off. How does that sound? Is that okay?”

Miles draws back and meets his eyes.

“Alfons,” he says, and there is an honest-to-God shiver picking its way up Alfons’s spine, simply because Miles so rarely speaks his name. “I belong to you. You know that? You don’t have to talk me into shit, or justify it, or make it a suggestion. I’m yours. And I’m yours to command.” He smiles, gently, and closes his eyes again as he kisses the tip of Alfons’s nose. “All you gotta do is want me back.”

Alfons swallows once, twice, three times. Why is it always so hard to say it out loud? Miles can just _say_ stuff—he articulates his feelings like each soul-searching revelation is just another observation of fact. But Alfons could dig in his chest forever for the right words to encapsulate all the light and all the warmth (and the thunderstorms, and the tight-cold terrors, and the spears of doubt and the slowly-rising quagmires of despair)—and come up empty-handed.

But he has to try, for Miles. He hopes that proves something.

He swallows again and manages, “You know I do.”

Miles presses their foreheads together for a moment, smiling, and then he draws back and settles in his seat.

“I have one demand of my own,” he says as Alfons guides the car back out onto the road. “A reasonable interval of cuddling is non-negotiable. I refuse to compromise on this point.”

Alfons finds his clenched jaw giving way to a grin. “Done,” he says.

And life is brief but wonderful, when you’re driving through the silvered streets with someone you love petting insistently at your arm the whole way home.

Fortunately, it’s not far, so it’s not much longer before Alfons is whipping the car ( _“You’re gonna kill yourself if you keep driving that junker like it’s a fighter jet!”  “Be nice, Brother—it’s a jalopy at the very least.  Besides, you relinquished your right to pass judgment the first time you accepted a ride.”_ ) into an open parking space on the curb.

He takes a few deep breaths, flashes Miles a grin that may possibly be a tiny bit crazed, retrieves his phone, and fumbles his way through a text to Al.

_Need the 5 mins to start now plz! <3_

He jumps out, darts around the hood of the car, and opens Miles’s door just in time to hear a familiar voice from a high window around the other side of the building.

“Oh, no! Pumpkin, come back! Brother, I’m going after her!”

“What? You are _not_! Hey, get— _down_ —”

There’s a tremendous clattering from the general direction of the fire escape.

“Pumpkin! Here, kitty!”

Alfons hauls Miles out of the car and starts towing him towards the front door, but not before a bit more yelling carries through the night:

“I’m going to euthanize that stupid animal, and _you’re next_!”

“You don’t mean that!”

“ _I wish I did_!”

Alfons lets himself into the complex and guides a mostly cooperative Miles over towards the elevator. He jams his thumb repeatedly against the button even though he knows—on a rational level, at any rate—that it’s not going to make the car come any faster.

“Come on, come on,” he says under his breath, and Miles leans a little harder against his shoulder with what seems to be an intention of encouragement. Even if they’re on Pumpkin Patrol all the way on the roof, though, Ed’s attention span maxes out at about four minutes and forty-five seconds even when he’s doing something he _likes_ …

The elevator _ding_ s forlornly, and the doors rattle open. Alfons drags Miles in almost before they’ve retracted fully, and then he stabs the _6_ followed by _Door Close_. If only this stupid contraption wasn’t slower than highway traffic at five o’clock on a good beach day…

But they’re off. Alfons’s stomach drops in that giddy elevator way—and then in a completely different way as Miles pushes him up against the wall and kisses him fervently.

There’s something about elevators—something about the gasp of privacy in a semi-public space; something about the limited time; something about the way Miles’s strong hand trails down Alfons’s arching spine to squeeze his ass, and _lightning_ courses through his veins—

He hears himself whimper as the elevator _ding_ s again, and the doors part with a clatter of decrepit machinery.

Miles sucks on his bottom lip for just a moment more, and then he catches Miles’s free hand in his and strides out into the hallway on his wobbly legs. The apartment’s just about halfway down; _surely_ they’ve been fast enough; _surely_ it’s only been three minutes, maybe four—

Alfons’s keys seem to be vibrating in his hand as he tries to get his fingers around the right one. A hell of a lot of jingling later, he’s jimmying it in the stubborn lock, and the knob is turning, and—

Sweet, merciful God; the living room’s empty. He fumbles to grab Miles’s hand again, the better to drag them both through the furniture obstacle course at reckless speed, and then to revel in the safety of his own bedroom, and then to sit Miles down on the bed and kiss his forehead and whisper “Stay here”, and then to scamper out into the hall and close the door quietly and sidle into the kitchen and—

“When did you get here?” Ed asks through his trademark overstated scowl-pout.

“Just now,” Alfons says, trying to play _breathless_ as _breezy_. “Wondered where you were.”

Al is glaring at him while stroking at a completely unperturbed Pumpkin’s back. Alfons resists the urge to wilt.

“We were on the fucking _roof_ ,” Ed says, “chasing the fucking _cat_. I swear to God, never in the history of evolution has there been a creature with so few survival instincts—”

Ed doesn’t seem to have noticed that the resident sleek calico is extremely alert and attentive, only ever disappears when it suits Al’s fancy, and never ‘escapes’ further than the far corner of the roof of their complex. Alfons does not intend to point it out.

“—pretty sure there are _coral_ more interested in doing what they’re told—”

Ed has a tendency to wander out into open spaces to allow a greater range of gesticulation when he’s ranting. Alfons waits until he has his back turned and then slips Al a twenty, which immediately halts the glaring.

“Anyway,” Ed says once he’s finished the latest anti-feline jeremiad, “what’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” Alfons says. He selects a glass from the cupboard. “Just going to have a little water and go to bed. Early class tomorrow.”

“Don’t know why you do that to yourself,” Ed says. “Hey, sleep well.”

“Thanks,” Alfons says, retreating with his prize. “You, too. G’night, Al.”

The money has long since vanished into a pocket by some small feat of legerdemain, and between Al and the cat, the former currently looks more prone to purring. “Goodnight, Alfons.”

He’s really got to stop doing this—if only because his bank account really doesn’t have an allotment for tipping co-conspirators in his love life.

Then again, the way Miles perks up and beams at him when he steps into the room—the way the moonlight hits his hair, how calm and comfortable he is among all of Alfons’s nerdy crap—his rumpled T-shirt and his faded jeans—

You can’t really put a price on that.

 

 

Sunlight is barely even toying with the window when Miles starts brushing Alfons’s hair off of his forehead and kissing it.

“I hate doing this to you,” Alfons mumbles, squinting in an unsuccessful attempt to convince the power of love to conquer astigmatism. “This walk of shame shit, it’s like—I just—”

“It’s not a walk of shame,” Miles says, tucking the blankets back in around him. “What’s shameful about it? I got to spend the night with you. That’s wonderful.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Miles says, kissing the bridge of his nose. “No shame. Just a nice stroll on a lovely morning. You worry too much.”

It is distinctly possible that truer words have never been spoken.

“Rest up when you get home, okay?” Alfons manages, reluctantly releasing his fistful of Miles’s shirt.

“Sure thing, babe,” Miles says. Alfons goes gooey inside again. “Text me later.”

“Okay.”

And then he’s opening the window, winking, clambering down to the fire escape, and… gone.

Alfons collapses back onto the bed, feels for his glasses on the nightstand, and tries very hard not to sigh.

No luck.

 

 

 

Half an hour later, he’s scrubbed clean, dressed well, and venturing out into the kitchen for coffee.

Al is back from his paper deliveries—as has been the case since he shifted his whole schedule an hour earlier in order to stalk his thirty-year-old idol more efficiently—but Alfons is extremely surprised to see that Ed’s already up and sitting at the kitchen table, eating only the marshmallows out of his bowl of Lucky Charms.

“Hey,” Ed says calmly. “Did your band dude already go home?”

“No!” Alfons says. “My what? I don’t have a—what are you talking about?”

There has _got_ to be something in the Geneva Conventions prohibiting interrogations before caffeine.

“I just think he should bring cake or something,” Ed says. “I think maybe that should be the toll for anybody who stays over. Not a _huge_ cake, just, y’know, maybe a five-inch diameter. And then if somebody wants to stay two nights in a row, it has to be a bigger size.” He nibbles at the end of his spoon and stares very, very seriously off into space. “Or cupcakes.”

“Cupcakes,” Alfons says faintly.

“Yeah,” Ed says. “Should we get him his own towel?”

“There is no ‘him’,” Alfons says, sounding slightly feeble even to his own ears. “I don’t know what dude you’re talking about. Is there a dude in a band? That’s nice. Is the coffee on?”

There’s still a good quarter-pot on the counter; he makes a beeline for it and scours the cupboards for a mug.

“If you’re going to keep smuggling him in,” Al says innocently, “we should at least get to meet him.”

“Then we should get to meet that middle-aged guy you’re stalking,” Alfons says.

“ _Thirty is not middle-aged_!” Al says, slamming his own mug down on the table. “And I’m not _stalking_ him; I just keep close tabs on his habits and make sure to be in the right place at the right time!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what ‘stalking’ means,” Alfons says.

“You’re a traitor, and I hate you,” Al says.

Ed, whose face is frozen in a classic combination of shock and horror, abruptly drops his spoon. It predictably lands in the bowl and splashes sugar-milk everywhere. “…th… _thirty_?”

“Oh, _now_ you’ve done it,” Al says. “I hope you’re happy. And your band boyfriend had better bring me _extra_ cupcakes to make up for this.”

Gripping the handle of his mug, Alfons valiantly tries again. “I don’t _have_ a band boyf—”

“Al,” Ed says in a slow, scary voice, “where the fuck does this guy live?”

“Not telling,” Al says. “Never telling. Taking it to my grave. Tell that person that I’m never speaking to again that he’s going to be late for class.”

“I don’t have to leave for twenty minutes,” Alfons says, and he’s going to need them, because he’ll _die_ if he doesn’t get a cigarette.

“Alfons,” Ed says, “tell me where the creepy old guy lives.”

“He’s neither creepy _nor_ old,” Al cuts in loudly, “and I resent that a _great deal_.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Alfons says—which is a lie, but a good and helpful lie that may prevent Al from murdering him in his sleep.

Ed’s eyes gleam in an extremely unsettling way. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I’m not talking to any of you,” Al says. “I’m only going to talk to Pumpkin ever again. How are you, Pumpkin? Isn’t it a fine morning of _cruel and unusual treachery_?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s especially unusual,” Alfons says, edging a cigarette out of the pack in his back pocket.

Ed pushes his chair back and goes into the hall.

“At least put your bowl away,” Alfons calls after him. Ed does this all the time, and Alfons is not believing the ‘science experiment’ excuse ever again.

Pumpkin leaps into Al’s lap and submits to some intense cuddling. Al should really forget his paper route and become a professional cat trainer.

“It’s just you and me, kitty,” Al says. “Everyone else in the world is against us.”

Ed returns. There is a baseball bat in his hand. Alfons desperately wants to crawl back into bed and start today over from scratch.

“How many creepy old guys do you think there are around here?” Ed asks.

“Try the nursing home,” Alfons says.

“If you’re not going to help, you can go fuck yourself,” Ed says. “Or fuck your band boyfriend.”

Alfons had just taken a sip of coffee. Said sip of coffee is now splattered all the way across their kitchen table, and has grazed Pumpkin, who accordingly took off like a shot.

Al looks down at his empty arms, and then at his armed brother. “This is the worst day ever,” he says.

“Seconded,” Alfons says.

“I’m still not talking to you,” Al says. “And you’re totally going to be late.”

He probably is, given the fine showing today has made so far. “Thanks. Ed, put the bat away. And your damn dishes while you’re at it. Where did we even get a bat?”

“It’s better not to ask,” Al says.

“God,” Alfons says, and goes to get his bag.


End file.
